Foreign journalists detained in China's 'Jasmine' protests

New York, February 28, 2011--Chinese security officials' concerted attack on the foreign press in a busy commercial street near Tiananmen Square in Beijing Sunday is a return to the restrictions international reporters faced before they were eased in the run-up to the 2008 Olympics, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

Police brieflydetained
more than a dozen foreign journalists and assaulted at least two at the site of
a planned anti-government protest in Beijing
on Sunday, according to international news reports. All were released after a
few hours. Anonymous appeals for "Jasmine"-themed protests in Chinese cities,
based on popular uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa, began
circulating online on February
19. The authors of the appeals call for an end to government corruption and
an independent judiciary.

Men in plainclothes punched and kicked an unidentified Bloomberg
journalist, confiscated his video camera, and detained him in a nearby store,
according to the news agency. He sought treatment in a local hospital for
unspecified injuries, Bloomberg reported. A journalist with Taiwanese
television station Sanli TV sustained a shoulder injury when he and a female
colleague were thrown into a van and detained shortly after 1 p.m., according
to Radio
France Internationale. They were released after 6 p.m., RFI reported.

The Foreign
Correspondents Club of China said journalists were warned by telephone to
seek special permission from the Wangfujing district office to report from the
site, a popular shopping center. The club did not specify who the warnings came
from, and said security officials had been unable to provide contact
information for a police or other security office in Wangfujing where reporters
could seek permission. The year before the 2008 Beijing Olympics, authorities issued
regulations allowing foreign journalists to report without prior authorization on
Chinese "politics, economy, society and culture," although the regulations are
sometimes ignored, particularly in sensitive regions like the Tibetan
Autonomous Region, according to CPJ
research.

"This is the worst aggression against the foreign press
we've seen since the Olympics in 2008," said Bob
Dietz, CPJ's Asia program coordinator. "Such a heavy-handed
response discredits the ruling Chinese Communist Party and highlights their fear
of popular opposition."

More police than protesters appeared for the second in a series
of Sunday afternoon non-confrontational "strolling" rallies. The organizers
designated well-populated commercial areas for the gatherings, to minimize
repercussions and render security interference more visible, international news
reports said. A few hundred people congregating in Shanghai were dispersed by street cleaning
trucks and police with whistles, according to The
Washington Post.

Deutsche
Presse-Agentur said one of its reporters, French journalist Jordan Pouille.
An unnamed Spanish television journalist; and two Hong Kong-based broadcaster
RTHK photographers were detained. German state broadcaster ARD journalist Christine
Adelhardt and colleagues, and state broadcaster ZDF correspondent Johannes Hano
and his crew were also taken for questioning, according to a DPA report
published on English-language German news website, The Local.

Many international news outlets published video and detailed
accounts of the encounters.

BBC journalist Damian Grammaticas
and a colleague were harassed and bundled forcibly into a police van at the
same site, a popular shopping street called Wangfujing. The men wore earpieces
but not uniforms, Grammitacas reported.

CNN'sBeijing
correspondent, Eunice Yoon, producer Jo Kent, and an unnamed cameraman
were detained in a bank and had footage deleted. Police officers obstructed an unidentifiedNew York Timesphotographer documenting the heavy security presence.

A uniformed officer intervened to stop a man in plainclothes
from hitting Voice of America reporter Stephanie
Ho, after she had been shoved from the street into a nearby shop. Ho and VOA
China service correspondent Zhang Ming were escorted from the scene and
detained, she told CPJ by e-mail. CBS
News also captured the incident on video. "It was totally unprovoked," Ho
wrote.

For users inside China
heavy censorship scrubbed the words "jasmine" and the name of the street,"Wangfujing," from the Internet,
according to the U.K.Guardian. Local media concentrated
coverage on the dangers of popular movements like the one recently in Egypt,
according to international news reports. Sichuan-based political blogger Ran
Yunfei was arrested on suspicion of anti-state activity on February 20, and
several other Internet writers and dissidents have been detained or harassed,
according to CPJ
research.

U.S.
ambassador Jon Huntsman, the European Union's delegation in China, and the Taiwanese government
all condemned the incidents, according to international news reports.